


Hey Good Lookin'

by PersonalSpin



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awful Romance Cliches, Awkward Flirting, Both are terrible at this romance thing, Canon-Typical Violence, Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, Hanzo is an author, Jesse is a photographer, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sombra (Overwatch) is a Little Shit, Spying on Your Neighbour, Suspicions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-06-28 23:46:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15717546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersonalSpin/pseuds/PersonalSpin
Summary: McCree’s never been holed up like this before with nothing to do. His mind can’t take the boredom, the stillness of sittin’ in one place all day. Maybe that’s why McCree is so fascinated by the new man across the way — if he isn’t going out to find trouble, he is gonna make sure trouble finds him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's that time of year again! My love once again to Dee, for hosting the McHanzo Reverse Bang, and to robo-cryptid and scienceblues for their help beta-ing! Any mistakes left over are my own.
> 
> This time I was paired up with Syzygy-y-y, who gave me a sketch that I immediately knew what I wanted to write, and they were very sweet about letting me burble excitedly about all my ideas (even if they made me google shunga). Art will be linked once it goes up!
> 
> I call this the _Rear Window_ AU nobody asked for — it's based more on the short story, if by based I mean I read the story and then threw it out in favour of making it gayer. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Also no animal harm or death in this fic. If you're uncomfortable with 'lowkey spying on your neighbours and making wild assumptions about their lives', you might want to give this one a miss.

A funny thing happens when you become a professional photographer; you suddenly get a whole lot more invites to places. A man’s gotta have rules though, and with even his own family expectin’ him to bring his new ‘plus one’ along, Jesse McCree does not work for free.

A line of photographs sway on a line across the window. Jesse watches idly as the photograph of Fareeha pullin’ out the air guitar during drunken karaoke on her 21st flutters in front of the look of betrayal captured on Gabe’s face moments before getting a faceful of wedding cake from his new husband. Angela’s face, caught mid-sneeze as she posed with her new doctorate, rattles along with the trees in the warm summer breeze.

Outside the window and beyond railing and the ledges where he keeps his collection of cacti, all the way across the narrow alleyway that separates the two apartment buildings, McCree can catch glimpses of his neighbour as he went about his day.

Jesse doesn’t know his name. He’d never spoken to his neighbour, had only heard his voice as it drifted across the alley and in through his open window. In the hot Sante Fe summers, McCree got used to hearing the door slamming at all hours as his neighbour hosted the occasional raucous party. It didn’t bother him none with the strange hours he kept, but Jesse noticed.

When he came back from covering the Null Sector in London and survived the murderous robots only to break his leg walking back to his hotel, McCree’s neighbour was gone. Jesse would have thought the man had moved out but all his stuff was still there, even the little bonsai tree on the windowsill left untouched. He notes the silence but he’s more focussed on the cast he's currently wearing from his ankle up to his knee.

It was the better part of a week before McCree realised the apartment was not as empty as he thought. Jesse could probably pass his neighbour in the street and not immediately recognise him, but he was certain; the man living in the apartment across from him was not Jesse’s neighbour.

Laid up with a busted leg, Jesse’s got plenty of time to pay attention now. This new guy’s so quiet, it takes McCree days to realise he’s leaving before the sun rises most days and only coming back when it’s dark. He’d known corpses that’d made more of an impact than this newcomer, but what tips him over from strange but harmless to suspicious was when McCree would see him. He’d be sitting by the window, staring at nothing as a steaming cup of something goes cold in front of him. Haunted, if McCree has to put a word to it.

Which was all a roundabout way of sayin’ _—_ when McCree sees something moving in the apartment across from his, he leans forward in his chair and watches the other window for a glimpse at his not-neighbour.

When the apartment stays dark and quiet, he sits back with a huff. Jesse doesn’t know if he’s more disappointed on account of his curiosity or his boredom. He’s never been holed up like this before with nothing to do. His mind can’t take the boredom, the stillness of sittin’ in one place all day. Maybe that’s why McCree is so fascinated by the new man across the way _—_ if he isn’t going out to find trouble, he is gonna make sure trouble finds him.

That’s how Sombra finds him when she rattles open the lock in his front door. “Why the fuck are all your lights off? Quit brooding in the dark!” she yells at him from across his apartment as she kicks the door shut behind her.

“It’s too hot for lights, and I ain’t broodin’!” Jesse yells back. “I’m thinking! Y’know, that thing where you use yer brain?”

“You’ve got one of those?” Sombra snipes back as she dumps her armful of groceries on the kitchen counter. She pokes at the Chinese takeout containers and makes a small noise of disappointment at finding them all empty.

“Har har,” Jesse mutters. He turns back to the window but whatever he’d seen movin’ is gone now.

Sombra wanders over to where he’s sat by the window, flicking on the light as she goes just because she knows it irritates him. “You owe me a coffee,” she says, giving the not-broken foot. She’s holding something behind her back, which immediately makes Jesse suspicious.

McCree scowls and lifts his leg out of danger. “I don’t owe you shit. How do I know ya didn’t just get me Mountain Dew and Doritos?”

“Gabi gave me a list,” Sombra hisses like that doesn’t exactly prove Jesse’s point. “I brought you another thing too.”

Sombra pulls the something out from behind her and presents it to McCree with a smirk. It takes a moment for Jesse to quit scowlin' at her and look at it, and then he takes the picture frame. The photograph is the one he'd broken his leg for in London, the shot that had been on front pages the world over the same morning he'd been figurin' out how to hobble around on crutches. It’s a good shot, the omnic larger than life as it bears down on him.

Jesse sets the framed photo down and heaves himself out of his chair, grumbling that it ain't coffee if it's mostly sugar. Sombra trails behind him to his bedroom, mercilessly mocking him for needing his ‘old man sticks’ and only pausing to take the opportunity to poke about his room.

They eventually make it out of the apartment, with McCree's crutches and without Sombra stealing anymore of his damn clothes. She rubs her wrist where he swatted at her and pouts all the way to the coffee shop _—_ the independent one that’s further than the chain, Jesse is sure to point out. "I'm jus' sayin', of all the times to have particular tastes _—_ "

It’s nothing she ain’t heard before and Sombra rolls her eyes so hard she’s gotta be giving herself a headache. She sticks her earbuds in to escape and Jesse’s more than happy to let her. He glances around the rest of the coffee shop while Sombra pretends not to know him. It’s always entertaining seeing what kind of hipster arseholes sit around in a place like this at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

Jesse doesn’t expect to focus on a man sitting towards the back. There’s nothing immediately eye-catching about him when there’s a half-dozen other guys with a laptop in front of them, all working on the next great American novel. He's handsome, sure, with an undercut and long black hair tied back in a bun that has Jesse wondering if it's as soft as it looks _—_ but there’s something there that’s poking at the back of his mind, relentless.

Jesse keeps staring at him as the line slowly shuffles forwards and Sombra's too distracted by her phone to make fun of him for ogling. The guy has his brows all furrowed and his lips pursed in concentration while his eyes dart rapidly over whatever he’s writing. Was writing, since his hands are hovering over the keyboard, frozen into frustrated stillness. Poor guy's strugglin' with writer's block. McCree winces in sympathy _—_ there's a reason he takes the photos and doesn't write the articles, he ain't got the gift for words like Lena and Lúcio do.

The man sighs and sits back as he apparently gives up for the moment. He scrubs at his undercut and Jesse can hear the rustle-scratch of it from across the café _—_ it makes his fingertips tingle. McCree rubs his hands against his jeans to get rid of the feeling and finally drags his eyes away from the man. They’re at the front of the queue and he hasn't even decided what he wants to order.

Sombra pops out her ear buds and orders her usual whipped cream and syrup monstrosity, which gives Jesse enough time to collect himself and order what he always does, a coffee black as his outlook. Sombra makes a face and asks for one of the huge muffins they have too. “Thanks for paying, Jessito!”

McCree pulls out his wallet, while rolling his eyes, and takes the chance to peek at the guy as he's handing over his money. The man's got his chin propped on his fist as he gazes around the café and he meets Jesse’s eye for a split moment. His heart gives a loud thump at the intense scrutiny on the man's face and Jesse damn near drops his wallet.

Sombra finally notices his distraction as he curses and fumbles his wallet. "Yo, what's up with you, _vaquero_?"

"Nothing," McCree grunts as he tries to glance away without drawing attention to it. He knows it's the wrong answer when she immediately starting glancing around the café.

" _If I were a cowboy with no taste and a questionable dating history,_ " she muses aloud in Spanish. Jesse makes sure to accidentally elbow her as he takes his coffee, leaving Sombra to grab her own drink as he hobbles over to a free table. It just so happens that it's in the corner behind mysterious hot guy.

McCree sinks into the chair with a moan as he finally takes his weight off his busted leg. Sombra kicks his boot again as she passes him to sit at the other side of the table. She sets down her muffin and coffee before steepling her fingers in front of her face and giving Jesse a calculating squint. " _It's the guy behind me, isn't it?_ "

Jesse doesn't want to respond and give her the satisfaction of knowing she guessed right, but she's just so damn smug about it he has to know. " _What makes you say that?_ "

" _Tattoos, piercings,_ " she lists off on her fingers, " _shredded, looks like he could probably kill a man with one hand tied behind his back. Honestly, you're kinda predictable._ "

McCree calls her something that if he said in Gabe's hearing, he would have a lot more problems than his adopted sister laughing at his taste in men. He’s of a mind to argue _—_ for no other reason than his damn pride _—_ when he gets caught on the first thing she'd said.

That's the moment the mysterious hot guy decides to stretch his arms over his head, and what Jesse had thought was the sleeve of his jacket is actually a sleeve _tattoo._ He damn near chokes on his own tongue as he follows the indigo storm clouds shot through with bright lightning and the twisting body of something with scales up and down the thick muscles of the man’s arm.

The thought that’s been poking at him finally makes a breakthrough as Jesse realises he’s seen this guy before, though he's never been in the same room as him. He’d remember dark eyes like that but the distance between their windows was too far for him to make out faces. McCree could only see enough to know that the new occupant was not the same man that liked his parties, and enough to see the dark tattoo the man had from his shoulder down to his wrist.

"Oh _shit_ ," Jesse says louder than he means to.

Sombra's eyebrows shoot up but she's smart enough not to turn around and stare. " _What? What?_ "

" _I've seen him before, I _—_ he lives in the apartment across from me."  _ Jesse doesn't know where to even begin to tell her about his spying, so he doesn’t.

" _You don't sound so sure,_ " she says archly, " _and none of my neighbours make me look like that._ "

_"Never spoke to the old one n’ he moved out while I was in London, and the invitation to his apartment-warming party got lost in the mail."_

Sombra scowls, giving him that calculating look again. Jesse sets his jaw in a stubborn line to keep from saying anything he’ll truly regret _—_ he hates when she looks at him like that, like he’s a stubborn bit of code she can just pick apart.

_"Do I need to call Gabe?"_ she asks eventually.

_"No, Jesus, don't do that."_ Gettin' other people involved when he doesn’t even know what to make of his suspicions about his new neighbour is the last thing he wants.

Sombra taps her phone against the table for a moment but quickly makes up her mind as she unlocks her phone and gives it all her attention. Jesse knows that look as well. "Sombra," he hisses.

" _I'm just finding out who he is, relax,_ " she says casually, like she isn't hacking into a stranger's computer while he sits behind her. " _You know, you really should be careful about what WiFi you connect to, this place isn't secure at all._ "

_"It ain't secure because you're the one hacking it!"_

Sombra just blows raspberries at him and keeps typing away on her phone. McCree is torn between hiding his face behind his hat and keeping watch. The mysterious hot guy, who is also possibly his new neighbour, is oblivious as behind him Sombra makes a noise of triumph. " _Hm, I think I recognise that name._ "

" _You do?_ " Jesse scoots his chair around while Sombra holds out her phone. _Hanzo Shimada._ Disappointment makes his heart sink. " _Doesn't ring a bell. Y'sure about that, Som?_ "

Sombra taps at her chin. " _OK, here's the deal. I do a little more digging on this guy—_ "

"Sombra!"

" _And in return, I let you see what he's writing._ " She gives Jesse a feral grin as she holds her phone aloft and out of his reach. _"You want to read this, trust me, it's so good."_

_"Why don't I believe that for a moment?"_ Jesse mutters. His curiosity, and insatiable need to stick his nose where it didn't belong, gets the better of him. There's a reason they have a pact not to tell Gabe certain things, and Jesse holds out his hand with a defeated sigh. " _This is probably illegal, y'know."_

" _You just keep thinking that,_ " Sombra says cheerily as she drops the phone into his hand. " _That's why you became a journo—_ "

" _Photographer—_ "

" _—and I became a hacker, because one of us has to get shit done around here._ "

McCree grunts, still wavering on whether to read the man's writing or not. _"Not sure I approve of your way of gettin' shit done but I promise to bail you out when y'get caught one day._ "

" _Only the bad hackers get caught,_ " Sombra scoffs, " _and I'm the best there is. The best also needs to powder her nose."_

" _Gross,"_ McCree says, just to make her roll her eyes as she heads for the bathroom. He looks down at the phone in his hand and sighs as he succumbs to inevitability and swipes to read whatever had the mysterious Hanzo Shimada focussing so hard.

_The farmhand glanced up at Cailan as he walked into the barn. "Howdy," Joshua said with a cheeky grin that still made Cailan's heart flutter in his chest and his cheeks warm, the same as it had the first time the charming cowboy had turned that smile on him. Like seeing him was enough to make his day._

_Joshua went to tip his hat and didn't seem to remember until his hand brushed through his messy blond hair that he'd left it hanging from Marigold's stable door. He twisted away to swipe his hat back, and Cailan could only stare at the way the back of his neck went blotchy red. "Hope ya don't mind my state of undress," Joshua said as he flicked a stray bit of hay from the brim._

_"No, it's fine," Cailan quickly reassured him. Now that he was facing Cailan, his eyes couldn't stop returning to the farmhand's broad chest, the sun-browned breadth of his shoulders. Sweat drops were carving slow tracks through the dirt on his strong arms _—_ the same arms he had dreamt about last night. The thought alone is enough to have the dream replaying in technicolour in his mind, remembering the feeling of Joshua pressing him down into his bedsheets while his large hands trailed over his skin. _

_Joshua's chest expanded on a sharp inhale, and Cailan finally glanced up to see Joshua staring back at him with a expression so intense it left him breathless. "Darlin'—"_

"Excuse me."

Jesse's head snaps up with what is undoubtedly an incredibly guilty face. In front of him, Hanzo Shimada has his laptop tucked under his arm and his coffee cup in hand, face completely neutral as he stands at the other side of the table.

"Uh," Jesse says eloquently.

"I require the power socket," Hanzo says, not at all put off by Jesse's sudden inability to form complete words. He points to the wall behind Jesse, who dutifully glances over and down. It's directly behind his chair, and when McCree does a quick check of the café it's the only one not being used. "My laptop is on low power."

McCree could say no, or he could get up and leave the coffee shop right now. Caught as he is between his curiosity and his broken leg, he stays put.

"Yeah, sure, go right ahead," Jesse says, tripping over his words now that he's found them again. He scrapes his chair around the table as Hanzo sets his laptop down and plugs it in. He angles it so Jesse can't see what he's typing _—_ like it makes any difference.

Hanzo immediately goes back to staring at his laptop, and knowing exactly what Hanzo's writing with that serious kind of focus has McCree struggling not to laugh. He coughs to cover it but Hanzo is still sitting right next to him and Jesse has to figure out what to do about that. He kinda wants to go back to reading but even Jesse isn't brave enough to read a man's porn while he's sat beside him. Jesse taps Sombra's phone against the table, unconsciously echoing what she'd done when she'd been considering hacking Hanzo's laptop. He stops as soon as he realises but his restless hands need to be doing something _—_ he picks at Sombra’s muffin but it’s deeply unappetizing, even to annoy his sister.

"You new in town?" Jesse asks aloud, catching himself by surprise as much as Hanzo. He recovers as Hanzo goes utterly still. "Don't think I've seen you around before."

"I am working," Hanzo tells him flatly. He doesn't even turn away from his screen.

McCree has been an investigative photographer for going on two decades now, ever since Gabe picked him up and figured out he had a pretty good eye for a story. Since then, he's faced war profiteers and crime lords, exposed some of the darker sides of people and politics. His leg wasn't the first time he'd been seriously hurt in the line of duty; Jesse had been bruised, beaten, shot at and lightly stabbed.

Hanzo's rejection doesn't sting but it is just about the most confusing thing he's heard all day. Either Hanzo's lying or somehow what he's writing is _work_ , and his scowl definitely isn't the face of a man who's at play. Against his better judgement and suspicions, Jesse might actually believe him. "Sorry," he says and actually means it.

McCree lifts his hat to scrub at his hair. Why does Sombra always take so damn long in the bathroom? He's tempted to pull out his phone and scroll his newsfeeds until she gets back _—_ hoping that Hanzo doesn't clock that he's got two phones _—_ but Hanzo’s watching him out of the corner of his eye now.

Being watched was never McCree's preference. That's why he has the camera; folks like him blend into the background, letting him capture those moments when people think they aren’t being watched. Jesse grits his teeth as he looks at nothing, sipping his coffee and picking at the muffin like he doesn't feel Hanzo's eyes on him.

He's just about resolved to let Hanzo look his fill when the man speaks. "I am new," he says slowly. "I came to this city for family reasons."

"Oh?" Jesse can't help but ask as he turns back to Hanzo. He feigns innocent curiosity, lifting a single eyebrow and hiding his face behind his coffee mug.

Hanzo gives a hesitant nod, like he isn't sure he should be talking to Jesse. His eyes are wide as he takes in Jesse’s face, darting over his hat and flannel shirt before dropping down to his broken leg.

Jesse grimaces _—_ it didn't even make a good story. McCree had been covering the omnic riots in King’s Row for a couple of weeks before he found himself on the frontlines of the altercation between law enforcement and the group calling itself Null Sector. The OR-14 came charging straight at Jesse, guns hot, and he waited until the last possible second to dive out of the way. His leg took the brunt of the impact with the concrete but he got the shot he wanted.

McCree's trick knee hadn't thanked him for the stunt, however, and the phone call from Gabe to chew him out for pulling such a dangerous move had him regrettin' every decision of his life. As if Jesse hadn't learnt everything he knew from Gabe. If he’s remembering right, Jesse had been arguing that exact point while limping back to his hotel room when he'd gone and tripped on a chunk of debris.

What McCree thought was just a bruise from the hard landing was a crack in his tibia; when he tripped and landed on his leg again, he finished breaking it.

Not that Jesse cares about impressing Hanzo; for all he knows he murdered Jesse's last neighbour and dumped his body in a shallow grave in the desert.

McCree's prepared for the mild curiosity on Hanzo's face as he wonders how he busted his leg. He doesn't know what to do with what he would describe as _interest_ on anybody else. Hanzo can't be interested in him like that, there has to be another reason why his eyes suddenly go sharp and his lips are pursed in thought again.

"Are you from Santa Fe?" he asks, leaning forward a fraction. Hanzo's elbow slides closer to his coffee cup, perched dangerously close to the table's edge, and Jesse's caught between watching him and making sure it doesn't fall.

"Yup, born and raised." McCree doesn't know what to make of Hanzo's considering hum. This was supposed to be Jesse getting information from Hanzo, not squirming as the man scrutinises him, like he's trying to figure out his story again, except he's only focussing on Jesse now. Hanzo doesn't say anything, just keeps watching him, and McCree feels like he has to keep talking. "I've travelled all over but I keep coming back. My folks think I'm crazy but I guess I was just born for the desert and sun. That, uh, pro'lly sounds a little nuts given the heatwave we're having at the moment but when I was in London all I could think about was comin' home again."

Hanzo nods again. He's got this considering look on his face, like what McCree's saying is worth listenin' to.  Jesse rubs the back of his neck where he can feel himself going hot with something like embarrassment. "If y'needed a local to show you some of the good places around town while you're here, I'm your huckleberry."

Hanzo's eyes go wide, leaning back in his seat in apparent surprise. His elbow goes wide and Jesse can only watch as he swipes the coffee cup clean off of the table. It clatters to the ground, thankfully empty, and rolls to a stop against the toe of Sombra's boot. She picks it up with a raised eyebrow at the both of them, like she just caught them conspirin'.

"Can't take you anywhere," she sneers.

" _Sombra—_ "

"I apologise," Hanzo says over Jesse, "I should have been more careful."

Sombra gives him a squint. "S'not the first time someone's thrown their coffee cup at me." McCree grinds his teeth together while Hanzo goes red, completely at a loss for words. Sombra is unbothered as she sets Hanzo's cup back down on the table and picks up her own, taking a long sip and smacking her lips obnoxiously. "You wanna head out now, Jes?"

Sombra tilts her head at Hanzo as she asks, anything but subtle. _Unless you would rather stay?_ she's asking, and McCree grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches.

"Naw," he says stiffly, "time to hit the road." Jesse heaves himself to his feet, fumbling to hold his coffee and get his crutches out from under his chair. Sombra doesn’t offer a hand, too busy pouting at her half-eaten muffin.

Hanzo might be hiding behind his laptop as Jesse shuffles around the table, but leaving without another word feels too weird. Like he's running away. "Hey, Hanzo?" Jesse says, sharp enough to make him jerk in surprise. Jesse juggles all his shit again so he can tip his hat. "See ya around."

Hanzo nods and McCree walks away before he can do anything else embarrassingly blatant. Sombra at least has the good sense to wait until they're back out in the blistering Santa Fe sun before she starts giggling. Seeing Jesse is all it takes to reduce her to loud honking laughter, with tears in her eyes. Every time it seems like Sombra might be calming down she just has to mime tipping her hat to completely lose it again. Jesse doesn't even bother waiting for her, just starts walking back to his apartment as fast as his busted leg will take him.

"Wait, wait! Hang on, fuck," Sombra wheezes, staggering after him. Jesse doesn't stop hobbling. “You in a grouch 'cause I interrupted your flirting?"

"We weren't flirtin'."

Sombra lets him know what she thinks of that, and _loudly_. It doesn't matter if she doesn't believe him, they weren't flirting. Jesse was asking questions and feigning interest because Hanzo was suspicious as hell and he was trying to figure him out. Hanzo listened to him because _—_

McCree lets out an aggravated huff. "We were _not_ flirting,” he grunts again and can’t figure out why it sounds so unconvincing even to his own ears.

Sombra takes a huge bite of her muffin and talks with her mouth full, spitting crumbs. "Is that why you pulled that face, y'know, when you went _—_ " she makes a shocked face so exaggerated McCree can't help but snort " _—_ because you know you're incapable of being anything but embarrassingly _cowboy_ all the time? I don't think you've got anything to worry about. He's obviously got as big a thing for cowboys as you do, except you want to be one and he wants one to _—_ "

"I don't need to hear this!" McCree interrupts her loudly.

Sombra cackles as she retrieves her phone from his pocket. "Sure, _vaquero._ You owe me more coffee, just so you know. One for letting you read what he's writing and then another after you two _—_ "

McCree whacks her in the ankle with a crutch. He never does tell her that he suspects Hanzo Shimada of something untoward. How the apartment is exactly the same save for the occupant, down to the bonsai tree on the window sill and the colourful poster on the wall behind. In his own mind and to an audience of one, his suspicions had seemed so well founded but Jesse knows Sombra will just laugh and make fun of him for his apparently obvious crush on his neighbour.

Once Sombra leaves to report back to Gabe on successfully poking Jesse until he left his apartment for the day, Jesse tries to get some of his own work done. He might not be able to go out and take the photos but there's still plenty that need editing. To say nothing of the emails he's let sit unanswered all this time. If he had his druthers he’d let ‘em sit a while longer but Gabe would end him a scathing text sooner or later _—_ or worse, send Sombra after him again.

It's been dark for hours by the time McCree sits back from his laptop and stretches his arms over his head, popping his back like popcorn in a microwave. He lifts his glasses to scrub at his tired eyes _—_ if he never has to see another damn email inviting him to an interview he doesn't want or a reward night with too many people and too little booze, it'll be too soon. There's a breeze coming in through the still-open window that he luxuriates in for a moment, the cool night air breathing a little life back into him.

A light comes on from outside his window, spilling into his apartment in a soft haze _—_ Jesse’d forgotten to turn his lights on, between the heat of the day and his emails, and hadn’t noticed he was broodin’ in the dark. Hanzo’s apartment is lit up, and Jesse knows the sound of that particular door slamming shut. Hanzo can’t only now be coming in from the coffee shop _—_ it's been hours.

McCree scoots his chair around to get a better angle of the other apartment. There's something else that's been buzzing around McCree's head since they'd walked out of the café, though he hadn't been able to think about it much with Sombra poking at him. He'd let it be, knowing that sooner or later it'd come into focus and he’ll finally see it all clearly.

It had something to do with the coffee cup Hanzo had sent flying off the table. Jesse keeps coming back to that moment Hanzo's elbow had sent it the floor, and he props his chin on his fist as he mulls it over while waiting to see if Hanzo walks into view. It's bad manners to get a takeout cup if you’re planning on sticking around but Jesse’s pretty sure he isn't getting hung up on Hanzo's lack of social etiquette. He’d just expect a hipster who sits in cafés to write his porn to know better and it ain’t like Hanzo's ever in his apartment anyway.

McCree jolts upright as the realisation hits like a shock down his spine, enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. If Hanzo's a hipster spending his days in cafés, why wouldn't he sit at the table with the power plug next to it? A regular knows they're a commodity and stakes his claim before he needs it. And the coffee cup _—_ it'd been empty. If he wasn't a regular, why was Hanzo sat in a coffee shop without any coffee?

It certainly weren't for the company, not with how Hanzo had brushed him off so quickly only to slowly, hesitantly try and get a conversation going. How it’d taken a minute before Hanzo actually leaned in while McCree spoke. So he spends all day in cafés and only orders one drink, speaks to nobody, and it ain’t a long-term habit. Might’ve only started going he'd moved into his new apartment. McCree can’t know for sure but the same instincts that get him the shots tell him there's something there, something worth following.

McCree startles again when Hanzo slumps at the table by the window. It's easy to recognise Hanzo now that Jesse knows who he's looking at, the shapes of his tattoo and his hipster haircut. He's holdin' something _—_ a towel maybe, or a dishcloth _—_ and Jesse fancies he knows why when Hanzo’s presses it over his eye.

Somehow the justified feeling never appears, knowing that Hanzo’s getting up to something that even from a distance looks like it’s gotta hurt. Instead Jesse’s heart sinks when Hanzo moves his hand away from his face and Jesse can see more clearly what kinda state his face is in. Based on years of falling into and out of trouble, Jesse knows the swelling might go down with ice but will still leave him bruised and aching down to his teeth.

Hanzo hunches further into himself, a miserable ball of pain without even his usual hot drink. All the time McCree has been watching him and it only strikes him now that he’s living a lonely sorta life. Jesse’s been in his position, beaten to hell and nobody to care about it, but not in years.

Jesse would bet his camera Hanzo doesn't speak to very many people while he lurks inside coffee shops and wherever else he goes. Something's driving him out of the apartment until late at night and that same something's beating the hell out of him.

McCree's already reaching for his phone to tell Sombra when he stops with his finger poised over the 'Call’. There's still not much he can tell her _—_ his neighbour's taken to going to coffee shops only recently and could’ve walked into a lamp post. It is more than that though, Jesse's gut insists, but he puts his phone back down on his desk. Let Sombra come back to him with whatever she finds out about Hanzo Shimada _—_ if she finds something, she's more likely to listen to him. And if she doesn't, Jesse doesn't have to endure more teasing.

Either way, McCree suspects that he's finally found the trouble he was looking for.


	2. Chapter 2

The doorbell ringing rouses Hanzo from troubled dreams he cannot quite recall upon waking. He stares groggily at the ceiling for several long seconds as he remembers who he is and why his face hurts, until the sound from the front door becomes too annoying to allow to persist. Getting out of bed is a struggle his aching body does not appreciate.

Hanzo shuffles to the front door without so much as bothering to make himself presentable. Whoever is so determined will simply have to deal with his bed hair. He pulls open the door harder than is probably needed. "What," Hanzo grunts.

Satya lifts the cat carrier silently in response. Hanzo blinks hard a couple of times before he moves aside to allow her in. He had forgotten completely.

"You do not look well," Satya says as she steps into the apartment. She spares a quick glance for the garish anime posters on the walls and the figures taking up the bookshelves, more so than the books, but she says nothing as she places the cat carrier on the table and turns back to Hanzo. "Are you treating your bruises?"

Hanzo resists the urge to touch his face _—_ he’d hoped they would have settled down more overnight but judging by Satya’s expression and the way everything above his neck throbs, he can assume they did not. Hanzo points back at the table, where the bag of peas he had pressed into service as an ice pack last night is now little more than a bag of room temperature mush. Satya clicks her tongue and disappears into the kitchen.

Hanzo leaves her to her search, walking over to the cat carrier and opening the door. "Hello," he says softly. Konton chirrups in reply and Hanzo can feel something in his chest already unwinding.

She had been his first indulgence when he had left the clan. A pet _—_ not a pawn, not an asset, but a companion. It was probably sad to admit that Hanzo had felt the emptiness in the apartment without his cat there walking on all the furniture and knocking over his drinks. To bring her all this way just to assuage Hanzo's loneliness would have been cruel though, so he had ignored the feeling as best he could. Now that he was fairly certain he would be remaining in the apartment for some time, he's indulged himself again and asked Satya to bring her.

Hanzo lifts his cat out of the carrier, smiling as Konton looks around and swishes her tail in excitement. He had only a few changes of clothes, his old laptop _—_ everything else in the apartment was Genji's _—_ but simply setting Konton down on the table under the open window makes it feel a little less like he is intruding.

Hanzo sits at the table to watch Konton investigate the towel and the bag of peas, Genji's bonsai tree. Her tail doesn't stop swishing and when Konton is satisfied that nothing on the table holds any interest to her, she walks back over to Hanzo and bops her head against his chin. "I missed you too," Hanzo says as he scritches under Konton's chin to get her purring.

Konton has made herself comfortable on Hanzo's lap when Satya returns from the kitchen with painkillers and another frozen bag of vegetables wrapped up in a towel. Satya wrinkles her nose at such crude methods but hands them to Hanzo anyway. "I will bring better supplies when I visit next."

"There's no need, Satya," Hanzo rasps as he takes the medication and dry-swallows a couple of tablets. He presses the bag of vegetables to his eye, biting his lip at the sharp sting as it contacts the bruises _—_ it is his own fault he is injured. He keeps gently petting over his cat's mismatched ginger and black ears, soothed by her rumbling purr. "Thank you for bringing Kon but you do not need to do anything else. I have already asked too much of you."

Satya gives him a sideways look and gives a noncommittal hum that says as clearly as words that she has only ever done what she wanted, whether or not it was needed. Taking a last minute teleporter to the other side of the country to deliver your coworker’s cat should not fall under either category but Hanzo doesn’t feel like arguing too hard.

Satya sighs as she takes in Hanzo’s sorry state, melting onions against his face and unwashed hair sticking to the back of his neck. "Then I shall ask something of you," she says as she sits down in the chair across from him. "Firstly, how you injured yourself."

Hanzo grinds his teeth, pride battling his obligation until the latter wins. He lifts Konton out of his lap and deposits her on the ground, where she immediately runs off to explore the rest of her apartment.

"A man sent spoke to me on the way back from the hospital. My family know Genji is in the hospital and he was waiting for me. They are trying to get us to come home. Our conversation was brief, luckily, and our fight even briefer. When I told him I was not interested in having my brother being treated like a bargaining chip, he tried other methods to persuade me." Hanzo grins with all of his teeth. "He had others with him, which I was not prepared for, but neither were they prepared for me."

Satya traces circles into the table, looping patterns that go around and around. "Does Genji know about this yet?"

Hanzo deflates, his vicious grin collapsing into a flat, stubborn line. "No."

"I believe he should be told." Satya stills her hand when Hanzo’s only response is to press his lips together harder. "You have told me in the past that he resents when you keep secrets from him, especially secrets involving your family."

Hanzo remains stubbornly quiet as Satya stares him down. When he concedes, it’s with a tired sigh as he pinches the bridge of his nose until his bruised face protests louder than the building headache behind his eyes. "I know," he murmurs to the table top. "I know, I just..." Hanzo glances away and towards the apartment. Genji's apartment.

He's living in his brother's apartment, on his brother's kindness, and even if Hanzo wanted to pretend otherwise he couldn’t. Everything there reminds Hanzo of his brother, his interests, his job. Even the towel against his face has dye stains on it in shades of green and blue. Hanzo stares at Genji's bonsai tree without truly seeing it, trying to think how he can avoid the problem of the clan and his brother entirely. He’d already fled Japan, how much further does he have to go to finally escape?

Movement out the window catches his eyes. It could have just been the wind in the trees, nothing that required a second thought _—_ until Hanzo spots a pair of mismatched ears in between the leaves.

Hanzo bolts out of his chair and to the window. "Kon!" His cat jumps from the tree and on to the railing of the apartment facing Hanzo's. The window has been left open in the Santa Fe heat and it's a simple matter for Konton to hop on to the ledge to investigate the many plant pots. "Konton!"

Konton pays him no mind as she pricks her nose on the cactus spines trying to figure out how to eat it. Calling her back would be futile _—_ if she heard, she would not listen _—_ and Hanzo is trying to _avoid_ calling attention to himself by staying in his brother's apartment and spending all day in coffee shops. Yelling out of his window at a cat is not going to go unnoticed; that doesn't stop Hanzo from placing his hand on the window sill and bracing his leg against the wall as he considers climbing out after her.

"Is there any food that might tempt her back?" Satya says, joining him at the window. She doesn't comment on how Hanzo is already halfway out of the window but she does put a hand on his shoulder and gently push him back. "She is not far. If she managed to get over there she can come back. Food, Hanzo _—_ what does she like?”

"There's a bag of chips in the kitchen," Hanzo says, without so much as a sideways glance at Satya as he stares holes in his cat. Like he can will her to stop trying to eat a stranger's plants. "Get it and start crinkling it, she'll come running."

Satya takes a couple of steps to the kitchen before she stops. The question is obvious before she even opens her mouth to speak. "Does _—_ "

"She likes the noise," Hanzo says through gritted teeth. "Please, Satya!"

Hanzo keeps watch at the window while Satya searches the kitchen, feeling powerless to do anything as his cat bats at the plant pots. He's going to watch her poison herself, or injure herself, or fall when she tries to come back to the apartment, or _—_

Someone from within the apartment appears at the window and scoops up Konton before she can come to harm. For a horrible moment, however, Hanzo’s fears transfer to him. He doesn’t know this man. He could hate cats, he could try to hurt Konton, he could _—_

Hanzo can't hear the words but he can hear his deep voice, the questioning lilt as he scratches Konton under her chin and she allows it, like this had been her plan all along. The man is nothing but gentle as he pets over her mismatched ears and down her spine, and only laughs when he goes to scratch her chin again and Konton decides she'd rather chew on his fingers instead.

Hanzo wants to collapse from relief but he can’t let himself relax just yet, he has to signal the man to do _—_ something. It isn't as if he can convince Konton to go back to the apartment anymore than Hanzo can. Satya's still clattering around in the kitchen and Hanzo’s nails dig into the window sill. He feels torn, caught. He does not call out to the man in the other apartment.

The man casts his eyes up and down the alleyway between the apartment buildings, as though he can ascertain where the cat in his arms came from and apparently not thinking to look straight across to where Hanzo is still staring at him.

Now that Hanzo is focussing on him, without fear-induced tunnel vision, there's something oddly familiar about him. Hanzo’s certain he has never met any of his neighbours, he’s made the effort to avoid meeting _anyone_. The fewer people that can recognise him and direct his family to where he is staying, the better.

Still, Hanzo can't help but stare at his messy chestnut hair and flannel shirt, waiting for inspiration to strike. He finds himself cursing at the distance between their apartments that he cannot get a better sighting of his neighbour.

It isn't until the man has his arm on the railing and is leaning over that Hanzo thinks to look down himself, right at the bright red cast on his leg. Hanzo makes a strangled noise that is born of surprise and utter horror and is just loud enough that the stranger can hear him. He ducks under the window quickly while the noise rises unbidden again, high in his throat.

Satya reappears, having located the bag of chips only to find Hanzo crouching under the window and hyperventilating. "Hanzo? Is Konton alright?" she asks, glancing between him and the window. She takes a step forwards and Hanzo has to stop himself from grabbing her to keep from being seen. "She is safe, look, your neighbour has her."

Satya waves, like it’s no concern of hers if the man sees her. The man from the coffee shop, the one who had made brief and awkward conversation with Hanzo, who had flirted with Hanzo after he hadn't been flirted with in years. Who had tipped his hat as he'd said goodbye as if that was a thing real people did. Hanzo makes another noise at that thought; he has almost definitely written characters that look and act exactly like Jes.

"There, he has seen me," Satya reports with only a quick glance down at Hanzo. He has a faint idea of what he must look like, hunched over like a fugitive. Her sculpted eyebrow raised is all the commentary Satya needs as she decides not to question it, opening up the bag of chips, and distantly Hanzo’s neighbour shouts a 'woah there!' as Konton must hear it and immediately begin to struggle. Satya keeps rattling and crinkling the bag, both eyebrows now raised _—_ Hanzo’s cat could generously be termed as _enthusiastic_.

Konton’s return to the window sill is announced by a jingle of her collar bell. Satya scoops her up, making the cat chirrup in protest, and quickly closes the window. "You may come out now, Hanzo," she says once the cat is securely tucked under one arm and bag of chips in the other.

"I..." Hanzo can feel himself grow hot at how ridiculous he must seem, but he can't come out yet. "Is he gone yet?"

Satya looks out the window only to wave at Jes again, and Hanzo has no idea how to impress upon her the seriousness of the situation except to hiss and flap at his hands at her. "He is standing at his window having a cigarette. Is there a reason this is a problem?" she asks dryly.

Hanzo scrubs a hand over his face, aware he is definitely blushing now. "I... met him at a coffee shop near here. I spoke with him."

"Was the conversation that dreadful?" Satya asks. Konton starts to wiggle and she deposits the cat in Hanzo's lap.

Hanzo waits until she has kneaded his lap into a suitably comfy perch to pet her to the tune of her rumbling purr. It gives him time to think how to answer Satya without revealing too much. His only problem is that most of how Hanzo has been spending his time in between visiting Genji in the hospital and coming back to the apartment to pass out for eight hours is faintly ridiculous.

It’d been a sticking point when he’d arrived in Santa Fe; Hanzo needed an internet connection to work and it was the only distraction he had that didn’t feel frivolous. It felt crude to ask for Genji’s WiFi password when Hanzo was already invading his brother’s home while he was in the hospital, so he simply didn’t. Luckily Hanzo found a coffee shop that would let him sit there for a couple of hours at the cost of only the one overpriced beverage.

That will have to change, Hanzo realises with no small amount of vexation. Hopefully he can convince Genji it wasn’t an intentional omission so he doesn’t have to leave his cat alone in the apartment all day.

In the end he settles for a simple recounting of their conversation, starting with Jes' correct guess that Hanzo was new to Santa Fe and ending with his offer to show him around. Satya joins him on the floor, folding her legs under herself and staying quiet while Hanzo speaks. Konton reaches out, still purring, and starts kneading at her lap as well.

Hanzo consciously avoids mentioning how he’d asked his own questions to hear more of the way Jes’ accent rolled over his every word, how much Hanzo had wanted to hear more. He had become so caught up by Jes' smiling mouth and laughing eyes, how he had lit up at the chance to talk about his hometown, that Hanzo had knocked his own coffee cup off the table. Hanzo grimaces just remembering it, and his strange disappointment that Jes' companion had reappeared then. He doesn’t mentioned that either.

It’s only on retelling that Hanzo remembers Jes said his name, though he doesn’t recall telling him. He dismisses the thought as paranoid, Hanzo must be remembering it wrong.

Even his threadbare account of their meeting in the coffee shop has Satya sitting forward on her knees and staring at Hanzo like he'd just told her he sprouted a second head during the full moon. "What?" Hanzo snaps, that expression on her face enough to set him on the defensive.

"He spoke to you?" Satya says. "He spoke to you and you spoke _back_?"

"Is that so unusual?"

“It is for you," Satya shoots back. "I learnt years ago to not interrupt you when you are working unless the building you were currently in was on fire, and then only when the fire posed a threat to your internet connection. You cannot blame me for my surprise."

Hanzo scowls at her and only looks away when Konton complains that he's stopped petting her. He scratches under her chin until she's purring in delight again. It breaks the tension between Hanzo and Satya _—_ when he glances up again her expression has softened again. "I worded that poorly. It is a good thing, Hanzo, I'm glad. Being in a new city, it can be isolating." Satya tilts her head. "Do you have any way to contact him?"

"No," Hanzo mumbles. Jes had left so quickly with his companion, they'd practically run out of the coffee shop. "I did not expect to see him again. This is _—_ "

"Then you are fortunate. But..." Satya frowned. "Why are you hiding?"

Hanzo feels his blush come back in full force so quickly it feels like he has spontaneously combusted. "He is. That is. He has a particular accent _—_ he said he was from Santa Fe. So he sounds like..." Satya blinks, not immediately understanding. Hanzo huffs, amusement fighting with his embarrassment that he has to say it aloud. "He sounds like a character from my cowboy erotica."

Satya looks extremely nonplussed for someone who had just heard that the living personification of Hanzo's wet dreams lives in an apartment directly across from his. It was either the best or the worst thing to ever happen to him, and Hanzo needed to hide until he could figure out which.

Hanzo squints at her, waiting for her actual response _—_ Satya keeps a straight face for all of one second before she snorts inelegantly and starts to smirk. "Then you are _very_ fortunate."

Hanzo groans and buries his face in Konton’s fur as Satya begins to laugh.

***

The morning after McCree speaks to Hanzo in the coffee shop, something has clearly changed. For starters, he's in his apartment and looks like he's in no hurry to leave for once. There's also a little calico cat curled up in his lap.

The cat Jesse had already become acquainted with when he heard something ringing and hobbled over to his window to find her tryin' to figure out how she wanted to eat his prickly pear. His window had still been open, though the breeze had been lighter that day and the air felt close around him, the trees outside barely making a murmur; unless the calico was hidin' thumbs and a talent for picking locks, that's how she'd gotten in. Askin' her hadn't been enlightening, though he tried it anyway.

She hadn't complained too much about being picked up, provided he kept petting her to her satisfaction, but then Jesse had been stumped. He didn’t think to look over at Hanzo's apartment at first, instead searching the alleyway between the buildings. A cute cat like that doesn't fit into the image McCree's trying to construct of Hanzo as mysterious and a little bit shifty _—_ although if he was being honest with himself, neither did the porn and the cute way he'd blushed when Sombra was being a little shit.

There'd been a noise, like a mix of a whine and a squeak, that was just weird enough to catch Jesse's interest. It was almost a habit to glance at Hanzo's window when something strange happens, except that wasn't Hanzo waving at him at the window. Jesse only stared dumbly at the woman in Hanzo's apartment before belatedly realising he should probably wave back. She had a bag of chips in her other hand, which seemed a little odd, until she ripped it open and the cat immediately needed to leave _right now_.

The calico had jumped from his arms as soon as she could and down on to the tree just beneath his apartment. The cat made it look easy, trotting up one branch and down another with her collar jingling the whole way. She'd leaped up to Hanzo's windowsill and the woman had quickly apprehended the runaway and closed the window.

It's certainly one of the stranger starts to McCree's morning, if not the most eventful. Waking up under fire from Omnics in Eichenwald still has it beat, but he'd smoked a cigarillo anyway, with the morning sun in his eyes and his elbows growing warm on the railing. He'd never seen the woman in Hanzo's apartment before, and he watches as she crouches down out of sight before reappearing with Hanzo and the cat.

This is the same man that Jesse has watched leave in the morning and only get back when it's crossing the line from very late into very early, and now he had company over. And a pet, seems like.

McCree has trouble marrying his mental image of Hanzo, the brooding neighbour who'd appeared suddenly one day and comes back to his apartment bruised and defeated, with the Hanzo he had spoken with. The one that writes porn in a coffee shop with a deathly serious expression and has a calico cat that adores chips. That ain't the kinda man who contemplates the middle ground like Jesse's seen him do, like a man guilty of something. This was... normal.

McCree's instincts haven't steered him wrong in a long while. He trusts his guts the way most people trust the sunrise, with the same unthinking certainty. Its told him to trust Gabe when the reporter had found him in a Deadlock hideout, half-feral and starving in more ways than one. Its told him to stay when Gabe took him back to his home, fed him, and introduced him to his partner. Even when Jack turned out to be a policeman, its told him to stay.

He's been spending too much time with Gabe if he's seeing guilty men in every shadow. Maybe it's time to start working with Lúcio some more, pick up some human interest pieces to remind him that not everyone's a murderer or a thief. He was writing an article about a hospital, last he heard, and Jesse's had quite enough of those with his busted leg.

Either way, that'll be for when his leg's out of the cast _—_ for now, Jesse settles in to doing more work at his computer. In the other apartment, Hanzo sits at his laptop and works as well, his cat a furry bundle in his lap. It's strange how fast McCree settles into a routine with his neighbour, of clocking Hanzo at his table by the window with his cat for company before Jesse inevitably gets absorbed in his own work.

The calico becomes a permanent fixture in the apartment _—_ and by extension McCree's. Hanzo can't keep his window closed for very long in this kinda weather and soon enough the cat gets out again. There's a joke to be made about the cat and her curiosity, since something about the cacti in Jesse's window fascinates her even when all she must get out of it is a sore nose. The menace has apparently caught on that neither of them want her doing it and walks so lightly Jesse has a hard time catching her; the only thing he sees is his plant pots knocked over and paw prints in the dirt, the cat always gone by the time he thinks to check.

McCree wants to be mad that a goddamn housecat is outsmarting him. He's sorely tempted to hang a sign in his window, addressed to Mr Shimada, telling him to teach his pet some manners. That might be crossing a line into 'weird' however, as much as having his adopted sister spying on Hanzo is tripping headlong towards 'creepy'. Sombra would definitely get a kick out of it, which more than anything makes Jesse resign himself to trying to catch the furry menace in the act.

It's as good an excuse as any to keep a weather eye on his window and the apartment beyond. Now that Hanzo isn't runnin' out of the apartment each morning like he's got a fire under his ass, McCree gets a better idea of what Hanzo's like when he's not acting shifty as all hell. He really does spend a lot of time scowling at his laptop. Jesse has a passing thought that it can't be good for a man to spend so much time with his face all furrowed like that, but not twenty minutes later McCree is muttering dark curses in front of his own computer as he tries to get the godforsaken colours right.

Where before McCree might have hunched at his computer for hours until he'd thought to lean away from his screen to pop his back again (like a skeleton thrown down a flight of stairs, Sombra liked to say _—_ and Jesse would always ask how the hell she knew what that sounded like) now Jesse always has half an eye on his plants and another checking on Hanzo. It didn't matter how long it'd take, when McCree glances over inevitably Hanzo will still be at his table, right where Jesse left him.

Sometimes Hanzo will have a mug of something next to him, and the cat may or may not be makin' a nuisance of herself somewhere else. It takes seeing Hanzo eating one evening, while managing somehow not to look away from his laptop, to remember to get himself some dinner as well.

It's almost companionable _—_ it's definitely something.

***

Jesse does catch the cat again, early one evening . He extracts the cat from outta his plants and looks at her a moment. She looks back, blinking big yellow eyes at him. "OK, kitten," McCree says, petting her ears until she's purring and slitting her eyes in pleasure. "How's about we compromise?"

He holds her just out of reach of his cacti, letting her look and smell her fill without upending anything for the umpteenth damn time. "See?" he says, pointing a succulent whose pot had smashed last time she'd paid them a visit. "That's a _sempervivum_ , a liveforever, but it can't do that if yer goin' and sticking your nose in her every day. My Mamá used to call 'em hen-widdies, said that's how her Grandmama called them, n' some of these plants were hers. That means they're older than you." The cat keeps on purring so Jesse takes it to mean she's heard and learnt her lesson.

He keeps holding her, enjoying her gentle rumbling and her flexing paws as she kneads the air. "It'd probably be a li'l hypocritical to tell ya to mind your elders, given the way I treat Gabe. I owe him a lot, y'know? He helped me out of a real dark place." Jesse smiles at little sadly at himself for spilling his guts to a cat that isn't even his.

"Alright, puss. Time for you to leave." Jesse sets her on the railing and gives her one last stroke from ears to tail, nodding in goodbye as he takes a step back. The cat blinks at him before jumping off the railing and makin' a break for his apartment. Jesse curses and limps after her but she's gotten wise being plucked up and darts away too quick for him to keep up with.

It's like livin' with a teenaged Sombra again, the way this cat insists on trying to stick her nose and paws into everything Jesse owns. She knocks over a couple of the old Chinese takeout containers Jesse hasn't cleared up yet, crinkles the bag from Sombra's groceries under her paws just to hear the sound, and bats at the cupboards like she wants to crawl inside.

McCree finally catches up with her with her head literally in his cookie jar and she has the gall to purr at him. "Yer a menace," Jesse coos as he strokes her ears. The cat only blinks in contentment and its difficult to stay mad at her. "Maybe you should head home now, kitten? It's late, Hanzo'll be worried."

McCree hobbles over to his window and sure enough Hanzo is there, head down and working away. He hasn't noticed his escapee yet but doubtless he will once he remembers the outside world. Jesse puts the cat back on the railing and she gives him a look like she's considering sprinting back into his apartment again but decides to sit instead. It shouldn't feel like a victory but with this cat Jesse will take what he can goddamn get. He keeps her company with an unlit cigarillo between his teeth and together they watch the sun set behind the Santa Fe skyline.

It's been a minute since he had company at his apartment. Most folks come by just to drag him out to a bar, like Fareeha does, or to the coffee place like Sombra. Sometimes Angie will come over, but not for long and she always perches on the edge of her seat like she’s moments away from taking off. Hell, Jesse doesn't think Lena and Lúcio have even been to his place. This asshole cat is probably the best company he's had since he moved to this apartment _—_ and here he'd been thinking that Hanzo had a terrible social life.

The cat whips her head around to face the apartment and Jesse guffaws around his cigarillo. Hanzo must have finally broken out the chips. She runs off home and McCree pulls out his lighter as he watches Hanzo spot her the moment she jumps in through the window. He picks up the cat and starts talking to her _—_ scolding her, if Jesse had to guess, though he also kisses the soft patch of ginger fur between her ears.

Hanzo glances up at that moment and catches Jesse's eyes. Across the open air between the apartment buildings, through the open windows, it shouldn't be possible to feel the intense scrutiny of those dark eyes like he had in the coffee shop. He doesn't feel caught this time _—_ Jesse knows Hanzo, has seen him fuss over his cat and get so distracted he knocks a coffee cup off the table.

Even if they're strangers; Jesse never did introduce himself. He needs that distance if he thinks Hanzo's shady, but that doesn't mean a small part of him doesn't regret the smart choice. It's probably why Jesse's so disinclined towards making it in the first place, but there's a reason why Jesse's the one behind the camera and not the one writing the articles, or going to the awards ceremonies and the interviews. He's supposed to fade into the background while the sunnier personalities, the Lena's and the Lúcio's, step into that spotlight.

The string of photos of his friends and family hang across his window, and Jesse doesn't appear in a single one of them. Nobody's supposed to see him, and they're definitely not supposed to look at him like that.

His phone on the desk behind him starts buzzing and a candid of Sombra eating an enormous cheeseburger flashes up on the screen. McCree stubs his cigarillo out on the railing and steps back into his apartment, leaving the window behind him open after a moment of heavy consideration. "Yeah, Som?" Jesse says as he answers.

"Hey, Jessito, I got the stuff on your new man," she says gleefully, the sound of her fast typing in the background.

Jesse huffs quietly and sits heavily in his desk chair. He can still see Hanzo in his apartment and he settles in to watching him. Hanzo sets his cat on the table and closes his laptop _—_ Jesse's seen her walk across the keyboard to Hanzo's obvious and loud horror. "You sound enthusiastic. I know you want to tell me, don't make me ask what you found out."

"I usually discuss payment before I hand over the goods. Maybe a little something more than coffee this time? Coz I was looking at the Prada website, as a matter of fact..."

"Sombra," Jesse growls down the phone.

"OK, OK!" Sombra mutters something in Spanish about how much he sounds like Gabe when he does that. "You know the name Genji Shimada?"

"Can't say I do," Jesse replies, scratching at his beard. "Am I meant to?"

"He's only a huge TV star _—_ y'know, a TV? That thing in the corner of your apartment with the talkies on it?" Jesse can hear the way Sombra rolls her eyes down the phone at him. "Well, he was in Santa Fe for a new show but filming's been on hold after an accident on set landed the guy in hospital. Supposedly it's really bad, he's been in the ICU for the better part of a month."

McCree counts back. A month ago he was still in London but he didn't know the exact date Hanzo had moved into the apartment. "And what, this is Hanzo's relative?"

"Brother."

"Well, shit." McCree mutters. Keeping odd hours makes a lotta sense if your brother's in the hospital. No coffee shop is open as late as Hanzo's been about, but a hospital would let him stick around. It accounts for his sudden disappearance and Hanzo's appearance as well. "If I had to make a wild assumption _—_ green hair, got a reputation for likin' parties?"

"Wow, it's almost as if you've been this guy's neighbour or something," Sombra says in a completely flat voice.

McCree scrubs at his face hard. "Fuck."

"What, did you flirt with him on accident? Afraid the family dinner's gonna be awkward now?"

"I told'ja already, I never talked to him," Jesse mutters. "Ain't talked with Hanzo since we saw him at the coffee shop either, so you can quit it with the comments."

"You mean you were making eyes at him and you _didn't_ get his number?" Sombra says loud enough that Jesse has to hold the phone away from his ear. "Do I have to teach you how to use your phone again? What _century_ do you even live in?"

"I don't go around askin' people for their numbers, especially _—_ " Jesse's teeth click together loudly. He could tell Sombra now, there'd be no harm in it. No harm 'cept to his pride and Jesse grinds his teeth as he seriously considers it.

"Especially what, Jes?" Sombra asks. Jesse stays stubbornly silent and she sighs into the phone, the typing sounds going quiet as she tries to be serious at him. "Y'know, I really did recognise Genji's name, but the face you pulled when you saw Hanzo _—_ "

"The one where I'm all worried because I can't stop _cowboying?_ "

"No, stupid, the one after that. You ever realise you have this face you pull when you're thinking suspicious thoughts about a person?" There's another telling silence. "Yeah, that's what I figured. You like to think you're unknowable and mysterious _—_ "

"Now that just ain't true."

"But it is," Sombra insists. "But you're not The Man With No Name, as much as you like to project that to the world. And you have a face you do when you think someone's up to something shifty. It's all in the jaw." Jesse realises he's doing it right now, holding his jaw so stiff it's starting to ache, and he has to make a conscious effort to relax it as Sombra keeps talking. "You realised before anyone else that there was something up with O'Deorain."

"And I was right, wasn't I? Moira was shady as hell." Jesse wishes he could pace around his apartment. Swiveling in his chair cuts through some of that nervous energy, his not-busted leg bouncing rapidly.

"Nobody's arguing that," Sombra continues, "but you saw it first. It's like you can smell trouble. Gabe did the smart thing when he gave you a camera and told you to go follow people you didn't like the look of. Only now you're getting that look about everyone, even the hot neighbour guy who writes dirty cowboy stories. He's, like, your soulmate."

"That's a little much, don't you think, Som? I've only spoken to the guy once."

"Well you'll never know if you don't speak to him again," Sombra snipes back. "You gotta get out there, Jesse! I know how this sounds coming from me, I get it, I'm not stupid. Fareeha agrees with me though _—_ "

Jesse groans into the depths of his hands, suddenly hideously embarrassed. It's one thing for his adopted sister to suddenly be giving him advice about his love life _—_ it's another when both sisters have apparently been conspiring about him behind his back. "How in the hell do you suggest I go about it then? 'Hey, I liked your cowboy porn, wanna see my collection of stetsons?'"

"Gross, I don't need to hear your pick-up lines."

"You're gross!" Jesse tugs at his hair before pressing his palm to his bouncing knee. He tries to take a deep breath and calm himself a little, get some control over this conversation before he gives in to the childish urge to throw his phone out the window. "Is that all you had to share about Hanzo? That his brother is famous and in hospital?"

"And that you need to get out of your apartment more, yeah."

"I'm ignorin' that part!" Jesse says loudly. "I sorta expected more from ya, like his mother's maiden name and the street he grew up on. I could'a Googled all that myself."

"Now that's just creepy. You gonna Facebook stalk him next?" Jesse snorts. The smirk Sombra had was easier to hear, the smugness of it rolling through her words. "I can do you one better though. I didn't Google all that, I found out by asking Lúcio, your coworker and the guy who's interviewing Genji about his surgery."

"You..." Jesse's run out of words. All he can do is scrub a hand over his face.

"Hey, do you think I should become a journalist? This shit's easier than I thought!"

"I'm not a journo," Jesse grumbles just to have something to say. He'd gotten so caught up in trying to catch Hanzo doing something red-handed. "I'm a goddamned idiot."

"I could'a told you that for free. So," Sombra says, drawing out the word, "now that we know Hanzo's not up to anything like experimenting on rabbits, will you please ask him out?"

"Sure," Jesse says, throwing his hand up in exasperation. "I'll ask the man out next time I see him, how's that? I'll even brush my hair and put on my nice hat."

"Gross!" Sombra complains loudly again. Jesse huffs a laugh at the ridiculous situation he's put himself in _—_ that he's agreeing to ask out a man he's been spying on for almost a month, whose cat lives part time in Jesse's apartment, after Jesse thought he might have done away with his own brother. He laughs again a little louder _—_ at least he knows not to ask Hanzo out to coffee.

Of course, he'll have to meet Hanzo again to ask him out. Jesse swivels back around in his chair to face Hanzo's apartment and his eyebrows immediately shoot up. Two men dressed ominously in black suits are in Hanzo's apartment and are speaking with him. McCree can feel himself go tense as he watches; something about their body language is screaming at him even from all the way over here. He might have thought this had something to do with Genji but this was trouble writ large.

He tries to tamp down on his gut reaction though. This might not be as bad as McCree thinks it is, but as he keeps watching the more he is convinced something is going on. Hanzo does not look happy that the men are in his apartment. His shoulders are hunched up under his ears, his arms stiff at his sides, and he's standing as far away from them as the small apartment allows. The calico cat is nowhere to be seen.

McCree thinks about the bruises on Hanzo's face, faded to a barely distinguishable shadow around his eye, and he jolts as a realisation hits him like a physical blow. Just because Hanzo ain't trouble, doesn't mean trouble wasn't after him. "Hey, Som, stay on the line, will ya?"

"Sure, what's up?"

McCree puts the phone on speaker and heaves himself out of his chair. He limps over to his camera bag, still where he left it when he came home from London. He makes his way back to his desk as he screws on his zoom lens _—_ not his usual choice, but as he lifts the camera up McCree finally gets a good look at the apartment across from his. The poster on the wall is comes into focus, going from the colourful shapes McCree was familiar with to something recognisable as a poster for a TV show. That'll be Genji's then.

"Yo, what's happening, _vaquero_?"

McCree swings his camera around to Hanzo. The grimace on his face is not a pretty expression, showing too many teeth as he snarls in frustration at the suited duo invading his home. Jesse pans over to the pair of them to see them wearing identical stony faces with not a lick of sympathy to be found on either. It only cements the bad feelin' McCree's got. He's sure he would have heard had they broken in, and the suits didn't exactly scream 'common house burglary' _—_ if Hanzo had let them in, it means they had something on him, some leverage.

McCree snaps a couple of quick shots of the men. If they are blackmailing Hanzo, he wants to be able to recognise their faces.

"Jesse, if you don't tell me what the fuck is going on, I'm gonna hang up and call Gabe."

"Hush up, Som," he says. "There's somethin' going on."

The conversation seems to escalate, turning uglier. Hanzo makes a sharp gesture with his hand, slicing through the air, and Jesse can only guess at what he's telling the men. They don't like it whatever it is, as they both take a step forwards that has Hanzo drawing himself up and sticking out his chin. Refusing to be intimidated, and Jesse takes another shot of the men threatening him because there's no doubt that's what they're doing.

It's only because Jesse's watching the men so closely that he sees the one not talking reach behind his back. “Sombra, call Jack!” McCree almost drops his camera in his panic, stumbling towards his window. “Hanzo!" he shouts as he catches himself on the railing.

Hanzo whips his head around towards Jesse, his eyes wide. Unfortunately, so do the other two men, and he finishes pulling out his gun before aiming it at Hanzo.


	3. Chapter 3

**That Morning**

_Joshua runs out of the stable after him. Cailan's so focused on running away that he tripped over nothing, and it was only because Joshua had his hand outstretched to stop him that Cailan didn't fall. "Cailan, I—"_

_"No, Josh," Cailan says harshly, wrenching his arm away as he find his feet. "You lost your chance. [Anger that he lied, didn't mention his past, thought they had something.]"_

"Fuck," Hanzo mutters to his laptop as he hits the 'delete' key hard several times. He glances around the hospital room for something to distract him, or at least lessen the frustration of being stuck on a scene for almost two hours and getting no closer to figuring out the direction. Hanzo refuses to admit he's written himself into a corner when he introduced the ex-lover so late in the story but he concedes that he might have to rework some of the earlier parts. Perhaps he'll ask Satya for her opinion, since his only other sounding board Konton keeps running off to Jes' apartment.

Jes has not been to his window in a while, and the few times Hanzo has made it to the coffee shop he has not seen him. As a result, his word count the last few days has been spiralling downwards, his dialogue becoming more stilted, his plot points more contrived. Hanzo wrote whole books before he had a cowboy neighbour to stare at but something about Jes so easily inspired him, even when it was something as simple as smoking beside his window every morning.

Watching him was the perfect start to his day, and without him Hanzo is hopelessly stymied.

Genji wakes with a small grunt and Hanzo's already closing his laptop and shoving it in his bag when his brother turns to him. He blinks groggily a few times before grinning. "Hey, _anija_ ," he rasps.

"How are you feeling?" Hanzo asks, scooting his chair closer to him. Genji squints in thought, obviously categorising all the body parts he can still feel. His hands under the sheets twitch but everything from the waist down remains still.

"Pretty good," Genji says eventually. "You speak to the doctors yet?"

"Yes," Hanzo says slowly. "I have spoken with Doctor Ziegler about the surgery." His mouth snaps shut loudly on the rest of what he wants to say.

There's a long, awkward pause as Genji looks at him and waits. "Go on, you were about to ask me if I was sure I wanted to ever be able to walk again."

"Genji—"

"I know," Genji says quietly. "I know it's risky and might not even work, but it's my risky decision to make. This is why I left the clan."

Hanzo presses his lips together to keep the cutting remark from tripping off his tongue. Leave the clan so that Genji could break his back doing stunts for a TV show, cripple himself to chase his childish ideas of fame and fortune in America? He knows it isn't fair, so Hanzo sighs and turns away before Genji can read it in his eyes.

"Dr Ziegler tells me the chances of it working, realistically, are very slim," he says instead. Hanzo is a realist, though Genji likes to call him a pessimistic. "You will need intensive therapy afterwards, and it may be many months before they are sure whether it has had the intended effect."

Living in hope for that long only to be disappointed would be devastating to Hanzo, with nothing he could do to improve his chances. Genji had always been the more optimistic of the two of them and he grins at Hanzo again. "But Dr Ziegler is an expert in her field. If anyone can do this procedure, it's her." Hanzo raises an eyebrow at him and Genji manages to give a little shrug. "I might have been talking to the journalist again, Lúcio? He's been around a few times since your last visit. I think I'm getting closer to convincing him to go on a date once I'm discharged."

Hanzo scrubs a hand down his face — he's not surprised that his brother would be flirting with the reporter who is supposed to be writing about the cutting edge surgery Dr Ziegler was looking to perform on him. "You are incorrigible," he says, but there's a smile ticking at the corner of his mouth.

"It's nice having something to aim for," Genji says. Hanzo can only sigh. "We could always talk about your love life instead, _anija._ "

"Let's not."

Genji whines like he isn't a man in his thirties. "Hanzo, when are you going to ask out your cowboy?"

"I regret telling you about him," Hanzo says flatly, making Genji laugh.

Of course his brother noticed the bruises around Hanzo's eye from his encounter with the men the clan sent. He poked and prodded, and finally pleaded until Hanzo gave in and told him everything. It was not a conversation he relished, nor the misery on Genji's face when Hanzo told him how he spent as little time in the apartment as possible. Hanzo tried to explain that it was to keep the clan from knowing where he lived but Genji hadn't believed that for an instant. He knew too well Hanzo's issues with duty and with being a burden.

To try and shift the sadness in his eyes, Hanzo told Genji about Konton's trips to the apartment across from his. Part of him hoped that Genji would know more about Jes but it was possible he knew even less about his neighbour than Hanzo did. "I dunno, he never complains about the noise and is gone a lot. Sometimes he smokes these cigars, and he has a cowboy hat." He shrugged. "I have never spoken to him."

Hanzo recounted his meeting with Jes in the coffee shop, much like he had with Satya in that it was lacking some details. The thought occurred to him again that he hadn’t told the cowboy his name, but he dismissed it once more.

Genji, unlike Satya, had spent his childhood with no secrets between them and knew Hanzo was holding back. He proceeded to wheedle it all out of him and had then promptly decided that Hanzo and Jes were perfect for each other.

Every visit since, Genji hasn't failed to bring up his neighbour. He seems to think that getting Hanzo a date will be good for him, no matter how many times Hanzo has attempted to explain to him that his priority is Genji, not his nonexistent love life. Genji persists, as he has in many other ways, in making Hanzo's life more complicated. "You know, it is hardly the end of the world if he says no to a date. Not that I think he will, because he's clearly into you as well, but you would survive."

"I am not afraid of rejection," Hanzo huffs. He has to resist the urge to cross his arms over his chest, because if he acts defensively Genji will only become more insistent. "And how he feels is irrelevant, since I will not be asking him out."

"OK, but what if he were to ask you out? Hypothetically, how would that make you feel?"

"I would politely decline," Hanzo answers flatly. Genji blows raspberries at him and Hanzo cannot help responding just as childishly, rolling his eyes and sighing. "Fine, if Jes were to ask me out, how would I feel?"

Hanzo takes a deep breath as he tries to genuinely consider his reaction. He imagines Jes just as he had met him at the café, in a plaid shirt and wearing a cowboy hat, and then how he would look if he was asking Hanzo on a date. His imagination happily fills in the missing details, the hopeful yet nervous look on his face, how he'd have to keep himself from toying with his hat or fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt. The many different ways he could choose to ask Hanzo.

_"I hope this isn't presumptuous, but if you're free this evening-"_

_"If you wanted to, perhaps we could go out sometime-"_

_"I know a place not far from here, what say you and I pay it a visit together-"_

Each scenario makes something warm unfurl in Hanzo's chest, and he has to stop himself before he starts to blush at his own imagination. "I suppose," Hanzo says slowly, looking at the wall as he knows that Genji is peering intently at him and will not allow him to lie, "if it were to happen, I would be... not disinterested."

"Romance yet lives, with sentiments like that," Genji says wryly. "It's amazing to me that you've somehow managed a career as a romance author."

"I am a man of many and varied talents," Hanzo says while heaving a sigh. In truth he wishes he had his laptop so he could try and capture some part of what he felt, that shy almost painful twist in his stomach when he thought about Jes smiling at him with those warm eyes again, hearing that honeyed voice say his name.

Fortunately, Genji seems to have distracted himself with mention of Hanzo's word. He shuffles on the bed like he is attempting to sit up, giving up before he gets anywhere with a huff. "So, how's the latest story going? Has Cailan met the other man yet?"

"Yes, but it has left me stuck."

Genji huffs. "I do not see you can't just have them bone. There is nothing stopping them."

"Because relationships do not work that way."

It's easy to bicker with Genji about this, easier than fending off his attempts to make him ask out his neighbour. This was familiar; since Genji had discovered boys _and_ girls as a teenager, he had been trying to take control of Hanzo's love life. He'd never been so insistent about a particular person before, and it was harder to wave him off when he could say there was nobody of interest.

Jes _is_ interesting, and Hanzo regrets once more not stopping the man as he left the café to ask him for his number. The arrival of his companion had thrown him off and Jes had tipped his hat to Hanzo, leaving him bewildered by the strength of his own reaction. The only characters in Hanzo's stories who did that to people beside old ladies and lawmen were the handsome, roguish types; it seemed charming on paper, and none of his editors have told him otherwise. Even as he wrote it, though, he'd always wondered if it would be actually swoon-worthy to have an attractive man tip his hat to you.

Now Hanzo knows better, because the moment Jes' hand wenr to the brim of his hat he started to blush. It should have been ridiculous, and it is a little, but Jes did it so easily and naturally. Hanzo had not gained back control of himself until he and his companion were long gone from the café. Luckily he was able to salvage something from that afternoon — his writer's block lifted like mist on a spring morning, and Hanzo managed to tap out a couple thousand words before he'd left to visit Genji.

Parts of Hanzo's life filter into his writing, as is inevitable. Genji usually appears in the form of a rebellious younger sibling who is much loved but a huge pain in the ass, who in this latest story is Cailan's little sister. Satya too has appearances as the friend with the timely word of wisdom, and unlike Genji is aware of the inspiration behind these characters. Hanzo knows that unless he actively tries to prevent it, Jes will start to influence his writing. It's probably a little weird but Hanzo hasn't been this productive in months and is wary of doing anything that will bring him grinding to a halt once more.

Especially when Jes is there to serve as such perfect inspiration. He's leaning against the railing of his window, an unlit cigarillo in his mouth as he shades his hand against the setting sun. Konton is sat beside him, content in the last warm rays of sunshine, and Jes reaches out to scratch under her chin to her obvious delight.

Hanzo has to tear his eyes away before he is caught staring at his neighbour. Perhaps he should add a barn cat, someone the shy Joshua can be open with, to show his vulnerable side to before the readers learn of his sordid past. But how should Cailan find out about it? Hanzo goes to the kitchen to make himself some tea while he mulls over his options, pulling out another bag of chips for Konton. It seems a shame to pull her away when she's happy but it's getting late and it grows cold quickly in the desert, even during a heatwave.

Konton materialises on the windowsill, chirruping loudly in protest, and Hanzo scoops her up before she can attempt to escape again. "I envy you," he says quietly, kissing her head. She boffs him in return, purring loudly. "But I don't think he would take kindly to me climbing the tree to his window. I doubt even Genji would encourage such forwardness."

The tip of Jes' cigarillo glows with his breaths in the darkening blue twilight. A cloud of smoke obscures his face for a moment and Hanzo has to squint to see if Jes has spotted him at the window. When the smoke clears, they make eye contact, and there's something electric about it that makes the hairs on the back of Hanzo's neck stand on end. It only lasts for a moment or two; something behind him catches Jes' attention, and he stubs out his cigarillo before disappearing back into his apartment.

Hanzo sighs in disappoint and turns away as well, depositing his cat on the table as he considers his options for the evening. It is likely that Jes will not reappear again tonight, as much as Hanzo would appreciate the extra help in his writing, and without him he can only anticipate beating himself senseless against the wall he has driven himself into. Editing sounds equally frustrating and dull, and Hanzo drums his hand against the table. Konton smacks at his fingers and he moves to scratch under her chin.

He retrieves his tea before it has a chance to go completely cold on the kitchen counter and brings it with him back into the living room. Hanzo settles at the table once more and Konton quickly insinuates herself into his lap while Hanzo gazes at nothing, petting her while allowing his mind to wonder.

The apartment is still Genji's space, from the figures on the bookshelves to the posters decorating the walls. There's even a print of the notorious _shunga_ piece 'The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife' in the bedroom, which Hanzo almost threw out the window the first time he saw it. Genji always insists with a laugh that 'it's art, _anija_!' but that has not stopped Hanzo from relegating the print to the wardrobe where he doesn't have to stare at it when he's trying to sleep.

But the food in the fridge is his, his brand of tea in the cupboards. His shampoo in the bathroom, because Hanzo had read the label of the bottle Genji had and immediately wrinkled his nose in disgust. Now that he was spending time in the apartment, with his jacket hanging by the door and his laptop on the table, it felt less like an intrusion.

There's a simple pleasure to be found in doing simple things, in buying groceries and vacuuming the floors. They are tasks Hanzo would never have done back home but here there's something almost enjoyable about the utter dullness of doing chores. In the Shimada complex everything was done by servants and Hanzo only had to forfeit his freedom for the privilege.

If choosing whether or not to have his surgery was why Genji had left the clan, this is Hanzo's reason; choosing whether or not today he would clean the bathroom or take out the trash.

There's a series of hard knocks at the door that pull him from his thoughts, and Hanzo stares at the wood grain on the door like it will reveal who's visiting at this hour. He knows in the pit of his stomach that it is not good news, that there are realistically only two options it can be and delaying answering the door will help neither. Still, Hanzo puts Konton on the floor and approaches the door silently.

He glances through the peephole for only a moment before he opens the door and silently ushers the two men inside. If the family sent them, they would not hesitate to force their way in and Hanzo wants to avoid dragging his neighbours into this. "Good evening, _kumichō_ ," one of them says, bowing deep enough to be polite but no further. Hanzo does not return the greeting. "We apologise for intruding on your evening but we have some urgent business from the family that we need to discuss with you."

" _Urgent_ , and yet the clan still sends peons to bargain with me," Hanzo spits as he moves to put the table between himself and the men. "What have they to say for themselves now that I have not already heard numerous times before? Well? Speak!"

"The operation you wish to have performed on your brother is dangerous. The Elders seek to advise you against such action," the man says without emotion.

Hanzo feels himself bristle at the presumption, the _audacity_. "What right have they to dictate to me and my family how we live our lives?" Hanzo growls. "We have cut ties with the clan, they hold no power to decide for either of us. I denied them any right to that when they would have had me _murder_ my brother for the sake of their honour!"

"That will no longer be necessary, _kumichō."_

"I do not care!" Hanzo shouts. "I am not your _oyabun_ , and I no longer allow myself to be the pawn of the Elders. I do not follow their edicts!"

"Please, they are offering your brother access to the best healthcare in Japan." That makes Hanzo pause again. This offer is too good to be without strings but he cannot yet bring himself to deny it. The man sent by the Shimada-gumi smiles, though there is no light in his eyes. He is well dressed in a suit, his features nondescript — Hanzo knows he is a killer for the clan and starts to think what weapons he keeps in his apartment. He wonders if they are armed.

"And why are they trying to lure me home?" Hanzo asks, narrowing his eyes.

"It is shameful that Genji is being treated in a hospital in America when there are experts in Japan who could properly see to his needs."

"His needs are being seen to adequately in Santa Fe," Hanzo sneers. "Dr Ziegler is an expert in her field. Surely the clan knows this given how long they have been following Genji and I."

"But even she cannot guarantee the surgery's success," the man says. "You would risk your brother's life to continue denying your duty to the clan, the position you were born to take?"

"It is not my decision," Hanzo says, drawing himself up and glaring down the length of his nose at the men. "Genji is his own man and he has decided it is a risk he wants to take. I do not expect the clan to understand this, they never do when someone is making a decision for themselves. They call it selfishness as if this excuses their ignorance."

"This is why we are speaking to you, _kumichō_ , you have always been the more rational. The Elders trust you to make the correct choice for your brother when he cannot see reason—"

"Their idea of the _correct choice_ and mine bare no resemblance to each other," Hanzo says, a cruel smile curling his lips. "As I recall, my _correct choice_ had them sending assassins after me for ten years. The men they sent weeks ago, have they found their bodies yet?"

The man is not deterred. "With his injuries, they are willing to overlook the mistakes of the past now that Genji is more amenable to doing his duty."

Hanzo goes stiff in blinding, incandescent rage. The men do not seem to understand the line they have crossed as they gaze back at him coolly. Hanzo has to clench his fists until the nails bite into his palms to keep from launching himself at them. "They want us to come back to Japan because they... they think Genji can no longer threaten their honour if he cannot walk," he says hoarsely. "This is what you are telling me. They will overlook his behaviour, but what of theirs? Am I expected to simply forget what they ordered me to do? How they tried to end both our lives when I refused?"

" _Kumichō_ _—_ "

"Be silent!" Hanzo hissed, his hand cutting through the air between them like a knife. "I do not want to hear what you have to say, how else you can insult me and my brother by offering up these paltry excuses. I am finished with this conversation — if you do not leave, I will make you."

"That is unfortunate, Hanzo," the speaker says. They talk a step towards him and the temperature in the room plummets. Hanzo shifts his shoulders back, head held high as he glares at the insignificant creatures in front of him. "You must understand, we were told to bring you back to Japan or not to come back at all." His companion reaches behind him for his weapon as the one who is still speaking only looks at Hanzo with cold, dead eyes. "We cannot accept your answer."

Hanzo slides his foot back, arms loose at his sides but his eyes focusing on the assassins. Even if he has a gun, Hanzo is confident in his chances. They might be trained by the clan to kill, but so is he.

Unfortunately, his neighbour chooses that moment to yell Hanzo's name. Hanzo curses aloud as the assassins turn as one to look at Jes, and the bolt of fear that hits him when the thug pulls out a gun solidifies one thing in his mind. Hanzo might not have been taught how to defend someone, but he can try. He was always good at improvising.

Hanzo grabs the edge of the table and heaves, flinging it at the assassins and sending them stumbling back. He uses the table as cover as he crouches down and pulls the knife from his boot, shifting his stance so he can use all the muscles in his legs to explode upwards from behind the table. Hanzo swipes the knife at the thug with the gun, catching him across the arm, before twisting and hitting out at the other man. His fist collides with the assassin's face, his nose giving with a crunch and a spray of blood as the thug stumbles back with a howl.

Both assassins scramble away from Hanzo, the one with the gun clutching his arm as his grey suit turns red. Hanzo adjusts his grip on his knife, all of his weight on the balls of his feet as he waits for their next move.

The one with the broken nose, who had done all the talking with a carefully neutral face, spits out blood and grimaces with red teeth. "Get the other," he orders the other assassin, his eyes on Hanzo. There's a spark of something malicious living there — the clan may want Hanzo alive but this man will ensure it's not in one piece. "I'll deal with this one."

Hanzo leaps to attack the assassin going for Jes, his knife tip ripping through his suit, but the other man is on him too quickly. He has to dodge the fist swinging for his head, twisting to catch the assassin by the wrist and pulling him forwards. It throws him off balance enough that he can't dodge Hanzo's punch. The assassin hunches over, his shouts loud enough there's no chance Hanzo's neighbours haven't heard him.

Hanzo grabs him by the belt and throws the assassin over his hip. The man lands with a crash on the overturned table. Hanzo leaves him on the floor, looking up to see where the other attacker has gone. For a single terrifying moment, he can't see him, and Hanzo can feel the adrenaline buzzing through him like white noise in his ears. The sound of something heavy hitting metal breaks through the static and Hanzo's racing for the window before his brain can catch up.

Jes is danging from the railing of his window. The assassin is in his apartment, pointing a gun at his head. Hanzo is out the window the next moment, his heart thudding hard in his chest. He has seen his cat do this enough times that it's easy — if the clan only knew that all their training would result in this, Hanzo running along the branches of a tree to save his neighbour from their own assassins.

He won't make it in time though, the man is already cocking the gun and Jes is dangling from a window three storeys high with nowhere to go.

Hanzo focuses on the assassin, taking a steadying breath as his attention narrows down to the man and his gun. The world goes silent around him; all he can hear is the air rushing through his lungs, stinging his throat, and the heavy thumping of his heart. Hanzo draws a breath as draws back his arm, holds it as he takes aim with his knife, and releases it as he throws.

The knife hits the man's shoulder with a wet thump and he recoils with a scream. The world rushes back in on Hanzo as he keeps running, not even pausing before he leaps and grabs a hold of the railing of Jesse's window, swinging himself up and inside. The assassin has his hand on the knife, a pained grimace as he tries to lift his gun to aim at Hanzo. It's far too easy to grab the gun and wrench it aside, grabbing the assassin's injured shoulder and pulling him down to meet Hanzo's knee. In the end he goes down without a fight at all and Hanzo stands in Jes' apartment with the man dazed, bloody and beaten at his feet.

"Uh, hey?" Jes' thin voice calls after a moment. Hanzo rushes over to see Jes still hanging from his window with a wan smile as he grunts and attempts to pull himself up. "Don't suppose you could—?"

Hanzo grabs him by the forearm and heaves. It's a little awkward with Jes' broken leg but together they manage to pull him up and back to the safety, though not without casualties. A plant pot is kicked in the scramble and the ceramic pot shatters. Jes looks at the mess of dirt and plants by his window and the assassin passed out in his apartment. "Well," he says, drawing out the single word into the awkward silence and letting it hang there to wither and die.

Hanzo has no idea what to say. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times but nothing comes out. What do you say to your neighbour whom you've just saved from being assassinated by your family? Thankfully Hanzo is saved from attempting to figure it out himself when Konton chirrups from the window railing.

Hanzo picks her up gently, mindful of any injuries, but she seems to be fine if a little frightened.

“She OK? Didn’t get hurt, did she?”

“No,” Hanzo says, looking up at Jes as he pets Konton soothingly, her rattling purr enough to break the ice.

“That’s good.” Jes scratches at the back of his neck. "Um, I s’pose introductions are in order?" He offers up his hand and Hanzo is unable to do anything but take it. "Jesse McCree, at your service."

"Shimada Hanzo," Hanzo says, before cutting a glance at Jesse with a smirk. "But you appear to already know that."

"Uh, yeah," he says, somehow even more awkwardly than before. In the distance a police siren wails. "I can tell you all about it while we wait for the cops?"


End file.
